


Well I'll Be Damned

by viixiie



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A few headcanons mixed in there, Aziraphale Is Soft, Crowley gets a new look, Crowley is Raphael, Don't look at me like that, I didn't almost cry writing this, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mild Angst, Multi, Post-Canon, Sex but it's ???, Slight amnesia au, Third-person Omniscient is Hard, alcohol use, lotta emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viixiie/pseuds/viixiie
Summary: Eternity is a strange subject. Once, it was promised without a doubt, then all but ripped away entirely in a span of roughly eleven years and a week or so.Now it's promised again, maybe, with limited surveillance and no responsibilities.And for two beings of inhuman, ethereal, otherworldly origin, with magical powers, this leads to an utterly chaotic level of free reign, shenanigans, and usually destruction.When those two beings of inhuman, ethereal, otherwordly origin with magical powers are one Crowley and Aziraphale, however, it typically leads to many long dinners at the Ritz, picnics in St. James' Park, afternoons in Aziraphale's bookstore, often drunk, and a general sense of timeless abandon that is typically reserved for children, apathetics, and two humans falling so far into love that they're blinded by it.For Crowley, he'd fallen once before, and that was simply his means of existence thereout.For Aziraphale, he'd fallen twice. He pretended he had done no such thing, for the benefit of them both. It wasn't entirely working, at least for him, but he ignored that fact regularly.





	Well I'll Be Damned

**Author's Note:**

> This took a long time and I'm REALLY happy with it!! I really love the writing style this franchise lends itself to as far as narration goes, and I went back a lot to fix flow and timing and such!! Please be welcomed to comment any critique or praise you have so I can keep improving!!

Eternity is a strange subject. Once, it was promised without a doubt, then all but ripped away entirely in a span of roughly eleven years and a week or so.  
  
Now it's promised again, maybe, with limited surveillance and no responsibilities.  
  
And for two beings of inhuman, ethereal, otherworldly origin, with magical powers, this leads to an utterly chaotic level of free reign, shenanigans, and usually destruction.  
  
When those two beings of inhuman, ethereal, otherwordly origin with magical powers are one Crowley and Aziraphale, however, it typically leads to many long dinners at the Ritz, picnics in St. James' Park, afternoons in Aziraphale's bookstore, often drunk, and a general sense of timeless abandon that is typically reserved for children, apathetics, and two humans falling so far into love that they're blinded by it.  
  
For Crowley, he'd fallen once before, and that was simply his means of existence thereout.   
  
For Aziraphale, he'd fallen twice. He pretended he had done no such thing, for the benefit of them both. It wasn't entirely working, at least for him, but he ignored that fact regularly.  
  


Crowley was, for all it was worth, still a being of utter chaos and darkness. Technically. By nature. Nature doesn't always exist as planned. Nature is, as are a great many things, ineffable. Crowley was a serpentine king of hell, and his coils of ebony and flame were winding their way around his own heart and trapping a great swell of adoration within its chambers until his black blood burned with the light of the heavens.   
  
That is to say, he was a very drunk king of hell, as he had been just a little more and more often recently, and an equally ethereal being clothed in layers of soft white and taupe was hunched over the demonic head he cradled in his lap, weaving his fingers idly through blood-copper hair in little absent-minded patterns; with alcohol racing through his bloodstream and setting his skin alight in the most delightful of ways, as it tends to do with such creatures as himself and Aziraphale, the glances of angelic skin against his own were dizzying. Speech was hard enough already.  
  
If he weren't so excessively intoxicated, he'd notice a shift in pattern, a certain level of focus that wasn't there to begin with. Aziraphale had noticed the soft intakes of breath between slurred words (though he couldn't begin to recant what Crowley had been slurring over) and was utterly transfixed with the demon's slowly growing silence and ever so faintly fluttering lashes. They were rarely all that physical, Aziraphale hadn't paid much physical attention to Crowley over most of his memory. Alcohol seemed to be their escape to comfort, to bad ideas they both know they need to share and act on but could never agree to on their own, to confessions and solace. Aziraphale reasoned to himself silently, that this was Drunk Crowley, that he was sensitive from the wine, that he would never...  
  
Aziraphale was sobering up without fully realizing it, and suddenly was warm with a flush of childlike wonder and a bit of shyness in place of the wine. He didn't mind the feeling; he had missed it since watching the first of Shakespeare's plays, or tasting his first crepes- not to mention the expanse of time between The Fall and now that held so much trepidation and uncertainty. After 6000 years, there's not quite as much to be wonderous over. It was the one thing he felt regret for, really. It was only really the little miracles he received from the snake he was still partially cuddling that gave him that feeling anymore, and he felt- he prayed, really- to never lose that feeling for Crowley. He could ponder what that meant at another time; he had all of it, after all. They had it all together.  
  
Aziraphale had almost grown used to the small variety of soft sighs and hums of his demon- _the_ demon, rather- and hadn't realized he'd stilled his fingers as he got lost in thought until he moved his hand again and felt it tug faintly against a small knot in Crowley's hair. The rumble against Aziraphale's leg from deep in Crowley's chest made the angel jump, but if his companion noticed it wasn't enough to make him stir. It was a sound somewhere between growling and purring, and Aziraphale wasn't sure if he was afraid or shamelessly intrigued.  
  
The latter, he discovered, because he almost immediately wove his fingers into the red tresses and simply gripped, with a gentle force only strong enough to be noticed.   
  
The rumble returned, accompanied by a soft hum and a slight roll-back of slitted eyes with pupils that seemed ever so slightly wider than usual and fully hidden whites. Aziraphale felt a small smile spring to his lips in delight at this discovery. When Crowley slurred something incomprehensible at the angel, his lips parted around the smallest hint of fangs. Crowley's fangs almost never made an appearance, and the angel tried to pretend they hadn't been devastatingly alluring every time they'd appeared over the last 6000 years.  
  
"Angel," Crowley hummed, his voice a bit hoarse but significantly less slurred. So he'd been sobering as well. Aziraphale felt himself blush faintly at being caught by a sober Crowley, and did his best to play the fool.   
  
"Oh, Crowley! G-glad to see you, ah. Back." A wide grin earned him a raised eyebrow. He was fooling no one, but aloof and innocent was all he knew how to play, really. Either way, Crowley was staring at him, golden eyes piercing, calculating, and Aziraphale felt himself swallow heavily moreso than he was ever consciously aware of his body deciding to do so. Getting caught in Crowley's stare usually meant Aziraphale had voiced a stupid plan, or that Crowley was about to voice a stupid plan, but this was... different.   
  
Different, because now Crowley's entire frame seemed.. suspended? He was stilled, hesitant. Crowley, impulsive, reckless, chaotic Crowley, now was paused on his elbow, looking up at Aziraphale as if perhaps looking for an answer. But if Aziraphale new him well enough- and he did- he didn't seem to know the query, either.   
  


Crowley was utterly perplexed. He had sobered up to feel not only bliss, but a heavy nostalgia. He had precisely no idea why he felt the secondary emotion, and he was entirely at a loss with what to do with it. Aziraphale showed only excited intrigue; really, it rolled off his soft frame in waves, and to the serpentine demon the scent tasted regretably delicious. For now, though, he could only search the depths of his angel's custom-designed, crystalline eyes for any hint of explanation or understanding. He knew he'd seen the wonder there before, for him in much the same way as it was there for crepes or new books. He remembered being the slightest bit hurt by that in the early years, but as he came to know Aziraphale more and more, it became an honour to be held in such high regard.  
  
"Crowley?"  
  
The angel's voice made the hellish man start, blinking out of his trance. Had he been staring? Yes. For how long? He had no idea, not that time held much weight between them now. The thought of time was now almost foreign. They'd spend days on end just lounging in the bookstore as of late, entirely uncaring about the passage of hours. "Yes," Crowley replied with a delay that he hoped went unnoticed. "What's wrong?"  
  
Aloof meets aloof. A classic moment of an oblivious lover caught in deadlights, but both of them were frozen. It was stupid, in retrospect. Two heavenly and hellish beings with miraculous powers, unable to fathom a shared attraction after 60 centuries shared between them.   
  
Though, with such a forceful separation by their employers, maybe it simply couldn't be helped.   
  
"Nothing, dear," Aziraphale replied softly. "You really just make me wonder."  
  
He didn't offer any further explanation, and Crowley, a little wrapped up in his own head, didn't think to ask.  
  


Night was typically not easily associated with angels, what with the darkness and the cold and the nature of beasts to lurk in the shadows in such quiet hours. But night, and darkness, were comforting to this one in particular. Day was frenzied, and while humans were cute and intriguing, the peace of night was unrivaled in Aziraphale's heart. Peace was, after all, all he'd ever wanted.   
  
The rear of the bookshop had a nice patio and no direct view, not that it would matter in the dead of night. Aziraphale allowed white wings to spread languidly from his back, humming softly in delight as he felt them stretch. Being able to unfurl them was rare, and most of the time he didn't have much of the energy to see them or what they represented when he did have a fitting chance.  
  
Angels were beautiful by design, that much was fact almost as much as it was that the earth was a Libra. Aziraphale simply wasn't... the right _brand_ of beautiful, at least in the eyes of any other angels. He knew this down to the marrow of his bones; he was an outcast among them, despite how well and favoured he once was. None were shy about reminding him of this. Not especially now- they left him well enough alone usually, but Gabriel in particular liked to pop down for jogs in their specific neighborhood to catch Aziraphale unawares with a sharp comment. "You've got that snake working with you," he'd sneered once, when Aziraphale tried to ask why he wasted his time to be cruel. "You can stand among the fires of hell. You're lucky you're still among the likes of us." Aziraphale hadn't responded to him since.  
  
The words stung, even still. He didn't WANT to be a traitor or a fiend. He'd just wanted to protect his earth, and his best friend. He wanted peace for the things he loved.  
  
He swallowed down the emotions threatening to overtake him as he dwelled on them, and gave a light sigh. With a tremor of his wings to wake himself up some, Aziraphale turned his eyes to the sky- not to the heavens, but the pitch of the atmosphere and the glitter of starlight. Adam would have the same stars to look up to, and so would Warlock, all the way across the sea. A smile graced his lips as he flexed his wings outward and examined them. The white feathers captured starlight and glimmered in silver, heavens-touched and warm. They were the one thing of Aziraphale's that he truly felt beautiful for, for as much as they stood for that he could almost say he despised. He much preferred the memories of his first time seeing the stars, crafted by the most beautiful hands he'd ever known. The golden haze from sunlight, the silver glittering of starlight, he could almost feel the warmth of the world wrapped around him in the snowy feathers of his wings. He was enamoured with them, most especially at night, and slightly more at peace with himself because of them.  
  
Fingertips along the top of his wing startled him, and the sight of such a soft man whipping back and folding in on himself in fear was heartbreaking in the split second it existed. Realizing it was only Crowley, eyes half-lidded with sleep and steps slow and ambling, tracing the edge of the stark white feathers, Aziraphale immediately relaxed and settled his shoulders again. His wings gave an involuntary tremor in shy delight at the attention, as Crowley's fingers traveled the feathers with near-expert care. It was as if the perfect path down the length of each one, calamus to rachis, was simply etched into Crowley's being; the absentminded explorations performed with such fragility that not a single vane was mussed. Aziraphale felt himself flush, and wisely opted to avoid comment.   
  
Crowley's wings slowly parted open as well, and from the demon's side Aziraphale could truly admire them- something he realized he hadn't much considered doing before. The black didn't glitter with the stars; rather, it reflected the warm amber glow of the fire in the lantern Aziraphale had hung outside the door, throwing deep copper shades under a rich rainbow of velvety jewel tones. _He's breathtaking,_ Aziraphale remarked silently. He could feel his breath literally catch in his chest. It took all he had not to stare at Crowley with a dumbfounded grin across his face.  
  
Crowley didn't notice. He'd started dreaming, which demons Cannot Do, or at least hadn't done before. To be fair, most of them never took physical forms. He was one of the few, along with Hastur, Ligur, and Beelzebub. A few others across history, sure. None of them ever bothered to try and have an imagination; in that, he was unique.   
  
Dreams weren't usually common for him, even still, but they'd been getting worse and worse. _Figures,_ Crowley supposed. _If I'm able to dream, I might as well only have nightmares. _That is to say, he'd simply seen nothing but golden gates slammed in his face, and the burning of white feathers, night after night. It was getting quite bothersome, and he was getting rather bitter. He couldn't remember everything of the fall itself; his friendship with Beelzebub, loose as it was, and the sharpknifed pain of being ripped from the heavens stabbing through his ribs and pounding in his head, when he had never once even known such a thing as 'pain' existed, were really the most that he had to go by, but he couldn't stop replaying those scenes. His "sauntered vaguely downwards" line only did so much to convince himself that it wasn't so bad, and he was perfectly content with himself. The loathing he felt would only get him shameful pity.  
  
Aziraphale, standing against the balcony with starlit white wings spread wide and a warm, the achingly angelic scent of honey and cinnamon sugar pouring off him, should have been nothing but a harsh reminder of what was lost, and he damn well was, but the demon could never quite bring himself to feel bitter towards Aziraphale.  
  
"You've still got all the stars on your feathers, angel," Crowley mused softly, almost imperceptibly. His face was unreadable as he turned around, and his wings were turning to dust, sparing only a couple of long feathers to carry off on the breeze. Omens of near chaos for the humans to read, no doubt, but the sight felt heavy to Aziraphale. "Generous of them. Letting you stay so beautiful."   
  
If it weren't for the achingly dull tone, Aziraphale would have blushed like mad at the incredibly uncharacteristic remark, but Crowley had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped and was returning back inside, and Aziraphale, while leaving him his space as he assumed was best, could only wonder, and worry, about his best friend.  
  


Beautiful, storybook autumn days were hard to come by in real life. Weather was capricious at best. On this afternoon in particular, at least in one, oddly unpopulated corner of the park, it was of mild temperature, the grass was vibrant green and the trees a pefectly complimentary wheel of reds and yellows, with faint, pale autumn sun flickering through the leaves to dapple the angular face of a snake. Or rather, a snakelike entity, currently inhabiting a loner body.  
  
The demon known as Crowley much enjoyed his pretty autumn days, and well, who was going to stop him from miracle-ing this secluded area of the park to be perfect, and totally people-free? That's right. Nobody. Could Beelzebub use miracles at will? Could Gabriel? Nope.  
  
_Gabriel._ The angel was an utter fleabag, sure, but nothing ever all that important to Crowley. Hastur would have been just as fitting to mention. He had LAYERS of demons to connect his rambling thoughts to. Why an angel?  
  
_He hurt _your_ angel.  
_  
_ His_ angel. He had seen the resentment in Gabriel's eyes when he demanded 'Aziraphale' step into the hellfire and die. The thought of such treatment made Crowley's blood boil.  
  
Crowley had never been one to deny or hide affections. He was blunt and clear. Sure, he'd tell Aziraphale to shut up when he tried to give thanks or forgiveness for one of Crowley's stupid pranks, but he still _did_ all the reckless miracles and appeared across history for the soft angel, which was more than could be said of him for a single one of the demons who had so readily welcomed him into hell.  
  
It was something about him, something in the way he spoke to Crowleywith such ease and appreciation, or how he grinned when he thought of the world and the little wonders in it he'd come to love over the 60 centuries spent within it. He'd never been able to understand the draw he felt toward Aziraphale, or how comfortable he felt with it. It simply Was.  
  
If Aziraphale could hear his thoughts now, he would call the feeling 'ineffable', and Crowley would hiss in detest, and it would be fake, and he would be content with that. He wasn't sure if Aziraphale knew it was all for show. He wasn't quite as content with that, he realized.  
  
Ineffable. It didn't mean "unexplainable". It meant deceitful, greedy, hypocritical, and cruel. In any mouth but Aziraphale's, it was a word worse than the devil, and that was coming from a king of hell. He'd lost everything over that word.  
  
He was home free now. He could do as he pleased, with almost no risk of repercussion. He mulled over that fact for a moment. Who really would stop him? Who would step up and tell him he couldn't change his form, make his hair golden again, turn his eyes a pretty ocean blue, change his clothes...  
  
_Raaaaphaaaaeeelllll..._   
  
A hissing whisper filled his head on the tongue of a white serpent, and for a moment, just a moment, he let his eyes flutter closed and the desperate, grasping smile of a man given the promise of One More Chance grace his lips.  
  
Crowley raised his hands. Scarred, darkened, with nails faintly pointed on the ends of long, slender fingers. The longer he stared, the more smooth and pristine his hands became. His nails rounded. The hem of his blazer was turning a soft, pale gold when his eyes snapped closed and he let out a yell, startling off treefulls of birds. His inner monologue, as it had been rambling on for days, was something like this:  
  
_Fake, Crowley, it's all fake! You're not one of them anymore and you'll never be, no matter how light and shiny you are! You are a demon! A bottomfeeding, dirty, evildoing snake!_  
  
The white serpent struck his jugular and tore flesh, struck his eyes and blinded. Heaven recoiled from his grasp and lashed out again and again, chasing him out of the Gates, chasing him off the Earth until the only direction left was Down. He ached for what was, now almost more than ever. Really, the end of Armageddon must have just catapulted his reality in his face like a flaming stone.  
  
Refusing to look at the trees recoiling back to their barren, dull states as he dropped nimbly to the ground and stalked away was 'self care', or whatever Aziraphale always prattled on about. He sank into the Bentley with aggression, but he paused a second too long and completely deflated against the steering wheel. 6000 years of repressing his anger, and the apocalypse being a dud had just reared the single ugly head of a drawback that it came with- Crowley now had no excuse for avoiding the fact that he had spent approximately 2 million, one hundred and ninety thousand days on earth (and countless more, equivalently, in hell) regretting ever talking to that damn Beelzebub and letting their shameful questioning get to him.  
  
It was the one drawback to being best friends with an angel, as well- a constant, daily reminder of exactly what he lost.   
  
And that was without what Aziraphale still remembered, and had, all those years.  
  


Aziraphale perched delicately on the edge of a plush chair, which was a strange lack of comfort for him. He poured over parchment, wracking his brain for the statements he wanted to express as if they had to be perfect. As if the words would ever be seen by anyone but himself. "It is therapeutic," he admonished himself softly. He wrote with a feather- a crow feather, specifically, in pristine condition- dipped in a thick black ink that made his lettering just a bit more heavy and messy than it needed to be. He loved the way the ink bled ever so faintly into the texture of the parchment, exactly as a good calligraphy ink is not ever meant to do. It was impure, veiny and heavy and wild in a way that excited the angel. Just as he'd always been, he supposed. Never quite as he was meant to be, never quite perfect.  
  
The smell of chilled air and a hint of spice caught his attention. Aziraphale recognized it at once, standing up with a grin and scampering toward the door with an exuberant, "Crowley!" as was so typical of him.  
  
Crowly had changed again; his hair fell in loose waves about his shoulders, and looked almost the slightest bit lighter at the ends. His jacket was a long, charcoal grey wrap, longer on the left side with hems that pointed over his thighs and a tall collar with a bit of a slouch under his chin; his pants were slim-fitted and- oh, heavens, leather.  
  
Aziraphale pretended not to notice that detail.   
  
"Was your walk satisfying, dear?"  
  
"Oh, yes, angel, quite. Gossipped with the shopkeeps. Debated with a passing minister. Fed the ducks. All sorts of... satisfying things."  
  
Aziraphale looked less than convinced. "Holed up in a tree again, did you?"  
  
Crowley let out what was almost a hiss, rolling hidden eyes. "Aziraphale, _please,_ I am a distinguished king of _hell, _we do not simply 'hole up in trees' like... ah. Well. Whatever it is that _does_ hole up in trees, I suppose."   
  
Aziraphale opted to not push the issue, though they both knew the small grin he wore was painting his disbelief quite plainly across his face. "Right."  
  
"Tempt me to some wine, angel?"  
  
"Isn't 'tempting' more your area, Crowley?"  
  
"So I shall tempt you to join me, sound fair?"  
  
The angel sighed, a sound that held far more adoration than a sigh tended to hold. He was a bit concerned with how often Crowley had opted to drink of late, but without risk of addiction- being that he was, of course, a demon- his companion was apt to quite easily grin and nod and follow the black-clad serpent to the back room.  
  
And anywhere he might decide to go, really, but Aziraphale had known that for centuries.  
  
The angel entered the room with a start, expecting black and arriving to a very shirtless demon, tunic strewn across the back of his usual chair as he poured wine for them both. He was different than Aziraphale had seen him before- he wasn't the cutting, muscular fit he'd been several decades back, but smooth and toned, with just a hint of softness to him. Aziraphale didn't notice he'd been caught staring until Crowley stepped back from the table and quirked an eyebrow at him. Was that a ghost of a smirk on his face?  
  
Aziraphale felt himself flush and quite quickly reached for his glass of wine. The more reality sank in that they were off with the world to themselves, the more he had been finding his mind... drifting.   
  


What he remembered that Crowley didn't was an absolutely beautiful history. Aziraphale had looked at Crowley with more than adoration; it was _love,_ centuries upon centuries of it, love that spanned beyond time itself.  
  
Beelzebub was a troublemaker what most ended up avoiding. Crowley had always had a sort of soft spot for the lonely or out of place- that much was clear enough even now- and had remained friends with him. Aziraphale had remained pleasant, of course, but kept a distance. He supposed Gabriel was friends with him as well, but he was much more skilled at silencing the forbidden ramblings that the prince of hell would start in on. Theliel was an angel of love, and had not had the best of times with some of the ideas had by the Almighty in regards to the creation of the world and such- and since Lucifer had already fallen for wanting to be given fair recognition for his loyalty, Theliel was... upset. He didn't have any means to _imagine_ negativity, per se, but he was very observant. It wasn't long before he was fallen as well, and he made a good name for himself down there.  
  
The Starmaker, Raphael, was one of the few who was at all swayed by Beelzebub's theories. He was one to raise alarm for a time, but he remained loyal and dormant- until Aziraphale was given the Flaming Sword and told to guard Eden, and Raphael's worries got the better of him.  
  
Aziraphale would be the first to admit that accusing an archangel of envy was a very impulsive and unkind act. He had spent the better part of over 6000 years regretting that he did so just to avoid suspicion on himself. He'd turned his back on the Ineffable Plan, at least a hair, in ever giving that sword away to begin with. Crowley fell for his honour, and he threw it away anyways. Crowley made a beautiful demon to begin with, quickly named a king and favoured highly for his antics. He'd remembered enough to appear in Eden, and Aziraphale had hoped to... apologize? He'd really never been quite sure how he expected the meeting with Crowley to go over. He remembered seeing the serpent in the garden, and could barely utter an admonishment to him before the creature hissed a plain "Aziraphale" with piercing golden eyes locked to his own, and then slithered away.   
  
The angel tried to tell himself it was the casual inquiring about the sword that had told him Crowley didn't remember him, or the timeless expanse of the love Aziraphel and Raphael had shared, but it was that moment. The way the snake had said his name, the feeling and energy in his gaze, it was calculating and blank. The unbreakable thread connecting two celestial beings had been sheared by the Almighty herself. Aziraphale liked to believe that he truly had given the sword to the humans to protect them after they were cast from the Garden. It was, in truth, his first act of rebellion against everything he, too, had lost in the fall of archangel Raphael. He wouldn't admit, not even now, that he was the one always leaving spots around the garden just warm and damp enough for the snake to rest comfortably, and making sure there were mice among the animals there. Crowley leaning under his wing in the rain was the first sign Aziraphale had had in a long while that Crowley would come to trust him once more, that he might yet hear that love in Crowley's voice once again. If it were even possible.  
  


"Sometimes I think I miss it, angel," Crowley spoke up suddenly. Aziraphale wasn't sure if he'd missed anything prior, or how long he'd been missing from the conversation. Crowley's face, though, seemed both devoid of emotion, and utterly broken, and it shattered Aziraphale's heart tangibly, ruthlessly. The angel's hand was against Crowley's cheek in concern before he could stop himself, skimming up toward copper hair, needing to hold and to comfort as quickly as possible and thinking only of the last time they'd drank; not, decidedly, about the ways they would pass time together with needless touch and affection in the heavens.   
  
"I.." Crowley began, trailing off ever so slightly as suddenly he was being Touched and thinking lost priority. "I tried a miracle today. A big one. I... I wanted to look like... like me."  
  
Aziraphale blinked, perplexed. "Crowley, dear, you look just like yourself! This all does quite flatter you, I must s-"  
  
"An _angel,_ Aziraphale, I tried to be an angel again, I tried to _lie!_" His eyes were fiery and his fangs faintly bared. It almost, for a heartbeat, felt scary to Aziraphale. "I would have been only another lying demon, though, wouldn't I? Isn't that a right laugh?" His smile was forced, and he quickly took a deep drink of his wine. "6000 years, angel, of mischief and fun and now there's no rules and all I want is to be a sparkly angel, hmm? What kind of _idiot-"  
_  
He was rambling, Aziraphale realized, with absolutely no filter. He was pacing, more and more distraught with each drink, wings spreading over time with once-striking feathers in disarray, hair mussed and eyes wild with pain. He called himself Crawley, and then Raphael, and Aziraphale felt absolutely lost in front of his best friend. 6000 years on Earth and Crowley had never, not once broken down, over a single thing.  
  
Except...  
  
Once. Crowley had lost his best friend, the only thing keeping him together, and he had broken inside. And that had been the only thing he absolutely could not, even for a moment, do without.  
  
Which meant that when he was so utterly broken now, the one thing that could help him must be-  
  
"Aziraphale."  
  
Crowley said it in such a shattered and pleading tone that his angel almost sobbed. "I think you're the only creature to ever see good in me, angel." He sank to his knees, and for the second time in their existances, Aziraphale saw tears in golden eyes, and the room was a blur soundtracked by the shattering of a wine glass dropped in panicked abandon as an angel flew to the ground and pressed his lips to those of a demon he had loved befroe time began and never once kissed.  
  
Thoughts, and time, stopped altogether. Movies and books will speak of a breathtaking kiss in unrealistic lengths of prose, full of adjectives and poetry that leads one to feel just a little disappointed in every kiss they actually have afterwards. But the kiss of ethereal beings, a long-awaited proclamation of 60 centuries of pining, 60 centuries of newfound adoration in a body that should be unable to feel love, and an absolutely timeless expanse of soulbinding love that not even God herself could destroy existed beyond even the finest words or most noble calligraphy. It was a moment of the light and warmth of the heavens, the fiery heat of hell, and the vibrant glowing life of the world two unlikely creatures had saved together simply to remain at one another's side.   
  
Aziraphale's hands found soft hair, and Crowley's found a soft jawline, and neither of them could tell whose tears were on their cheeks by the time they both pulled away, Crowley speechless and breathless and Aziraphale struggling to keep his words in order.  
  
"Anthony J. Crowley," the angel started. "I love you. I have... since you stood on that wall with me, in Eden. I have since we spent our days in the heavens together. I don't care if you wear white or black or red. I don't care if you... if you can't touch holy water, or if you make chaos wherever you go, at least a little bit. I don't care if you don't want to be called nice. You, and only you, have been the only one by my side, all this time, _before_ time began. I wouldn't trade you, wouldn't change you, for the world or the heavens above." He took a shaking breath and cupped Crowley's chin delicately, studying his face. "You are... _breathtaking,_ dear. And I am... well, I'm not beautiful. Not like an angel is meant to be," he added quickly, tempering Crowley from interjecting. "There are two parts of me that are beautiful, timelessly, irrefutably so, Crowley, and one of those things is simply _you._"   
  
Crowley was fighting another wave of tears, and Aziraphale gripped his hands tightly, commanding that his demon feel his heart racing for _him,_ always just him.  
  
Aziraphale opened white wings and stretched them out wide, facing Crowley with a pride in himself he'd never felt before. He could feel it, that thread weaving again. It had started long ago, ever so slightly, fiber by fiber. "My wings, Crowley, they're the most beautiful thing I have. Because when I spread them like this under the sky, I can see the stars in them. The stars that watch over everything we fought for, all the centuries we spent together, the years of rebellion. The stars that guided _our side_, that get to stay up there because _we won, we saved the world._ The stars my dearest love Raphael made, and the stars my dearest love Crowley kept safe. I _remember_ you. I have always remembered you. I've simply been waiting for you."  
  


The love that a demon can feel is, historically speaking, rather low, and rather specific. Aziraphale having a boyfriend, as the angels saw it, and Crowley having a best friend were very similar in taboo-ed-ness, as they implied a level of lust and love, respectively, that was unheard of for each sect of celestial and hellish beings. The Ineffable Two, as at least Aziraphale liked to call themselves, were quite good at lawless rebellion against fate's design, and this was rivalling stopping Armageddon in the face of Archangel Fucking Gabriel and the Prince of Hell himself with nothing but a flaming sword and an 11 year old boy with a rat terrier on their side.  
  
'This' being a couple of half-nude ethereal entities joyously drinking spirits and revelling in the taste that a lover's lips acquire when touched by a very expensive wine.   
  
Because in truth, especially with the absolute lack of lust and temptation among angels, this exact scene was a VERY long time in the making, and there were absolutely no rules to bar them from freely adoring each other.   
  
It was, or was to be, after a carefree time spent simply enjoing one another, sex, but not in the way that any human would ever have it. Angels, and their darker counterparts, were sexless by design; reproduction wasn't possible, and for a multitude of drastically different reasons depending on your... 'employment', it was never business you had any means partaking in. The option was there, of course, to simply miracle things into being that would humanize the entire experience, but Aziraphale and Crowley quite enjoyed their reputations for finding any unorthodox means they could to solve any given situation, and this was no exception.  
  
Crowley could register the moment they both remembered a couple nights prior, because Aziraphale gave the smallest gasp, grinned, and snaked fingers up into Crowley's hair with a firm tug on the back of his skull, and Crowley, only giving hums of approval at the angel's attentions and adorations prior, let out what was almost a snarl fading into a near purring rumble deep in his chest, with an undercurrent of a surprised moan. His pupils flared, and he stared up at Aziraphale with a renewed energy like he'd been sparked.  
  
This was the uniqueness of them; both of them had a desire to show the other both the love or lust they were made to embody, and the lust or love generally forbidden to them.  
  
Both of them wanted to feel the lust or love they expected from the other that had been so taboo for so long, and both of them was becoming increasingly desperate over any drop of the love or lust the other was procuring from sheer imagination. In all, it was an act of absolute destruction of fate's design.   
  
Crowley, a demon, a being of hell, very much adored the thought of his sweet, soft angel being so far tempted as to act on lustful impulse, and even moreso, that his darling Aziraphale would hold any semblance of roughness with him.  
  
Aziraphale, an angel of the divine and holy, treasured the image of Crowley being so kind as to shower him in affection and adoration as they once did.  
  
But Aziraphale, always one to break any pattern given to him, had fallen in love with an angel first, and a demon second, and now he had no rules or mld to follow or fit, and he had long since realized he liked the demon a little bit more.  
  
So the angel pressed his demon to his back on the longer couch wth gentle fingers, and started along finely sculpted collarbones with soft kisses, not to slow them down for his preference, but to allow him to focus, so that when he straightened with his tongue passing across his fanged grin and just vaguely catlike pupils blown wide, he knew the smirk he gave his snake was exactly as he envisioned it to be, and not at all rushed or messy.  
  
The slow blink and involuntary shudder of a whine that Crowley gave in response was entirely gratifying, and just as Aziraphale had hoped, the redheaded demon sprung forward and kissed him, first on the lips and then down his jaw, over his jugular where he just briefly lingered with a delightful little growl, and down his shoulder and collarbones and sternum. Aziraphale was pushed under Crowley's expert attentions with no struggle at all, and he already felt a little dizzy with it all. Crowley was even more delicious than he had imagined.  
  
There was no guide or rulebook for having sex as an angel, or a demon. There was no plan, Ineffable or otherwise. Crowley and Aziraphale could, technically, spend the rest of forever just trading kisses, years on decades on centuries of hands and teeth and tongues and eyes only for each other. And the thought did cross their minds, admittedly. "Beelzebub and Gabriel could never," Crowley remarked in breathless tones once, and Aziraphale's laugh was reckless and loud and absolutely _beautiful_. Crowley had never had a wider smile than he did in that moment, staring down at _his_ angel. They both knew it had moved so quickly; a mutual tangle of pining and hurt and self doubt for all different things that just happened to all tie together even if they couldn't see how or where the knot met in their histories together, now suddenly following one impulsive kiss into a bliss so heavy, so necessary, that all of time stopped only for them and nothing in the world could take them over. Neither of them could bring themselves to care.  
  
The world was saved, and heaven and hell had fucked off to tend to their own for however long, and for right now, all of time was theirs, together. Theirs to make up for 6000 years of being separate but never alone, theirs to profess love and lust until they were absolutely overwhelmed by it and their bodies ached with it. Theirs to change shape and do it all again, to act as women or men, or both, or neither, however they pleased, whenever they pleased.   
  
Raphael would never exist again, and that was alright, really. Aziraphale glittered with the stars Crowley made for him, that still reflected in Crowley's golden eyes when he looked at his angel. Crowley threw the most striking jewel tones to the fire of Aziraphale's sword and all his sweet candles, or the bright autumn sun Crowley so adored, whose warmth he could feel and taste in Aziraphale's kisses or his gentlest touch.  
  
Crowley had forgotten their first love, and that was alright, too. Aziraphale had never lost him, not even to hell.  
  
It was all going to be okay. Existing in the sun and stars of each other's love was all they would ever need.  
  
The rest could simply remain ineffable.

**Author's Note:**

> My actual heart is,,,, aaaaAAAAA  
I wasn't 100% on where this was gonna go at first and I feel SO GOOD ABOUT IT now that it's done! I really like the idea I saw forever ago that Aziraphale forgot Crowley when he fell, but I like it even MORE that Crowley forgot, and that's why Zira looks so painfully in love all the time.  
Also, writing sexual scenes with sexless characters is unique and really fun! I had meant to include more detail there, but I also feel like it flowed decently the way it ended up? I may write a one-shot or something soon to make up for that for y'all if it's wanted!  
Gimme your thoughts!


End file.
